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The go-to greeting for most schools and retailers won’t be Merry Christmas.

Walking through the streets of Ottawa, festive lights and decorations like snowmen, snowflakes, reindeer, Christmas trees and even old St. Nick have come out of storage — but it is clear that there has been clever ways to get around displaying our traditional Christmas greeting.

Merry Christmas is nowhere in sight.

Like in many of the area’s schools.

“It’s just important to recognize and honour the parents and the students we do have,” said Leslie Walker, Principal at Ottawa Children’s Treatment Centre (OCTC) School.

“We do have a mix of children from different faiths.”

The school will be hosting a Christmas concert titled the Twelve Days of Holidays — a slight modification to the traditional carol, the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Other schools have opted for titles like Holiday Concert, December Celebration Concert, Holiday Singalong — basically, anything but Christmas concert.

Despite the grand effort to get rid of the word Christmas, when the Sun asked Ottawans what greeting they would use this winter, an overwhelming proportion said they were sticking to Merry Christmas.

“I’m still of the old belief that Merry Christmas is still the best...because of my religion and tradition I guess,” said Lois Simpson.

“I think that if you know the other person’s religion, for example Jewish or Christian, you can say Happy Hanukkah or Merry Christmas. Otherwise, I would leave it alone. You don’t need to say Happy Holidays to make it all well and good,” said Jennifer Sturton.

“It needs to not be imposed on anybody.”

Even local retailers in the Byward Market said they won’t adopt the habits of bigger retail chains that have essentially banned the words Merry Christmas in their stores.

Ottawa vendor Fred Sinden said he goes with his gut and what feels natural.

“(Customers) say ‘Merry Christmas, how you doing and Happy New Year’... you can just tell by the people, you wouldn’t say that to a Muslim I guess, but they wouldn’t be here buying anything anyways,” Sinden said with a laugh.

Sinden owns a festive booth downtown where he sells Christmas wreaths and various other decorations — he says he has never offended a client by wishing them a Merry Christmas.

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Merry Christmas not the greeting of choice

The go-to greeting for most schools and retailers won’t be Merry Christmas.

Walking through the streets of Ottawa, festive lights and decorations like snowmen, snowflakes, reindeer, Christmas trees and even old St. Nick have come out of storage — but it is clear that there has been clever ways to get around displaying our traditional Christmas greeting.